An Examination of Child Pedestrian Rule Compliance at Crosswalks around Parks in Montreal, Canada

Marie-Soleil Cloutier (), Mojgan Rafiei, Lambert Desrosiers-Gaudette and Zeinab AliYas
Additional contact information
Marie-Soleil Cloutier: Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre Urbanisation Culture Société, Montréal, QC H2X 1E3, Canada
Mojgan Rafiei: Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre Urbanisation Culture Société, Montréal, QC H2X 1E3, Canada
Lambert Desrosiers-Gaudette: Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre Urbanisation Culture Société, Montréal, QC H2X 1E3, Canada
Zeinab AliYas: Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre Urbanisation Culture Société, Montréal, QC H2X 1E3, Canada

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 21, 1-17

Abstract: This study aims to examine child pedestrian safety around parks by considering four rule-compliance measures: temporal, spatial, velocity and visual search compliance. In this regard, street crossing observations of 731 children were recorded at 17 crosswalks around four parks in Montreal, Canada. Information on child behaviors, road features, and pedestrian–vehicle interactions were gathered in three separate forms. Chi-square tests were used to highlight the individual, situational, behavioral and road environmental characteristics that are associated with pedestrian rule compliance. About half of our sampled children started crossing at the same time as the adults who accompanied them, but more rule violations were observed when the adult initiated the crossing. The child’s gender did not have a significant impact on rule compliance. Several variables were positively associated with rule compliance: stopping at the curb before crossing, close parental supervision, and pedestrian countdown signals. Pedestrian–car interaction had a mixed impact on rule compliance. Overall, rule compliance among children was high for each of our indicators, but about two-thirds failed to comply with all four indicators. A few measures, such as longer crossing signals and pedestrian countdown displays at traffic lights, may help to increase rule compliance and, ultimately, provide safer access to parks.

Keywords: road traffic safety; crossing behavior; child pedestrian; rule compliance; crosswalk; parks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/21/13784/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/21/13784/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:21:p:13784-:d:951066

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().